Das Bundeskabinett will Deutschland auf den Weg zum Fusionskraftwerk bringen. Bis 2029 sollen über 2 Milliarden Euro in einschlägige Forschung fließen.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. All currently remotely possible fusion concepts need a Deuterium-Tritium reaction, with Tritium as fuel, and the Tritium needs to be bred in conventional heavy water uranium reactors, because unlike Deuterium, Tritium is unstable and does not exist on Earth.
There is the idea that the fusion power plant performs further Tritium breeding to regenerate fuel in a “blanket”. But it is extremely unclear and highly questionable whether 100% fuel regeneration can be achieved, because not only the technology to do that, but also the materials which would be needed for such a blanket, so far do not exist.
Fusion has A way higher energy yield than fission as can be seen here:
So if we are able to get fusion to work it produces way more energy than if we would get with nuclear fission.
The graph above works the following: on the x scale you have an order for elements (based on their Mass Number). On the y scale you see the their Binding Energy. So if you would fuse deuterium and tritium together you can take the difference between your starting binding mass and where you land at and the difference is the energy you gain. However as you realise after iron the graph goes down. This means when you fuse two elements together you have to invest more energy than sou would gain from fusing them together. This is where you gain energy from fission.
If you want to understand all the physics behind this look into what the so called mass defect is. In short it means, that the energy binding the protons and neutrons together also adds to the mass of the particle. This is also the reason why the end products of a fission reaction are lighter than the initial product.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. All currently remotely possible fusion concepts need a Deuterium-Tritium reaction, with Tritium as fuel, and the Tritium needs to be bred in conventional heavy water uranium reactors, because unlike Deuterium, Tritium is unstable and does not exist on Earth.
There is the idea that the fusion power plant performs further Tritium breeding to regenerate fuel in a “blanket”. But it is extremely unclear and highly questionable whether 100% fuel regeneration can be achieved, because not only the technology to do that, but also the materials which would be needed for such a blanket, so far do not exist.
Thank you for that!
Are we pursuing it for the sake of evolving fuels or will it be better? What are the trade offs between our current fission vs entering fusion?
If you are short on time, I can always check into it later. People often provide insight that I’d otherwise not have!
Fusion has A way higher energy yield than fission as can be seen here:
So if we are able to get fusion to work it produces way more energy than if we would get with nuclear fission.
The graph above works the following: on the x scale you have an order for elements (based on their Mass Number). On the y scale you see the their Binding Energy. So if you would fuse deuterium and tritium together you can take the difference between your starting binding mass and where you land at and the difference is the energy you gain. However as you realise after iron the graph goes down. This means when you fuse two elements together you have to invest more energy than sou would gain from fusing them together. This is where you gain energy from fission.
If you want to understand all the physics behind this look into what the so called mass defect is. In short it means, that the energy binding the protons and neutrons together also adds to the mass of the particle. This is also the reason why the end products of a fission reaction are lighter than the initial product.